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DriverPacks is a collection of hardware and device drivers, and this bundled drivers is very suitable those who are too lazy to search for drivers everytime you re-install Windows or if you just simply forgot to backup all your hardware drivers.

DriverPacks is an open source project, mainly to create a ‘uniform’ Windows installation CD that works with every hardware without having to look for the drivers. The latest DriverPacks slipstream tool, DriverPacks BASE 8.09 RC 1 support the creation of stand alone drivers location, without the need to have a source OS. Currently, there are 10 DriverPacks available:

DriverPack Chipset – ATI, ASUS, ALi/ULi, AMD, Fujitsu, Intel, SiS, nVidia, SMC, VIA [detailed list]

DriverPack CPU – AMD (K8) (other manufacturers are supported by default Windows drivers)

DriverPack Graphics A – Frequently updated version of ATI, nVidia [detailed list]

DriverPack Graphics B – 3dfx, Asiliant, ATI, Intel, Matrox, S3, SiS, TRITTON, VIA, XGI [detailed list]

DriverPack Graphics C – ATI, nVidia [detailed list]

DriverPack LAN – 3com, Accton, Airlink, ADMtek, AMD, Broadcom, Buffalo, corega, Conceptronic, D-Link, Intel, Level One, Linksys, Marvell, Microsoft, Netgear, nVidia, OvisLink, Realtek, SMC, Surecom, SiS, Trendnet, U.S. Robotics, VIA [detailed list]

DriverPack MassStorage – 3ware, ACARD, Adaptec (includes HP/Compaq), AMCC, AMD, ATI, Areca, ALi/ULi, Dell, Emulex, Highpoint, IBM, Intel, JMicron, ITE, LSI, Marvell, Mylex, nVidia, Promise, QLogic, Silicon Image, SiS, VIA [detailed list]

DriverPack Sound A – Creative, nVidia, Realtek, VIA [detailed list]

DriverPack Sound B – ALi/ULi, C-Media, Conexant, Creative, Hercules, M-Audio, Sigmatel (includes Dell, Fujitsu, Samsung, Toshiba), SoundMAX (includes Dell, Gateway, HP, IBM, Intel, Sony), SiS, Terratec, Turtle Beach, Yamaha [detailed list]

DriverPack WLAN – 3Com, Accton, Agere (also supports ARtem, Avaya Communication, MELCO INC, D-Link, ELSA, LANCOM Systems, Enterasys, IBM Corporation, LEGEND, Lucent Technologies, TOSHIBA, NEC Corporation, NEC Aterm, Samsung, Siemens, FUJITSU, Fujitsu- Siemens, 2Wire and Wireless), Airlink101, Asus, Atheros, Avaya, Belkin, Blitzz, Broadcom, Buffalo, Cisco, corega, Conceptronic, D-Link, Edimax, Entersys, intel, Linksys, Lite-On, Microsoft, Minitar, Netgear, Orinoco, Peckard Bell, Ralink, Realtek, Senao, SiS, Sitecom, SMC, Surecom, U.S. Robotics, Zonet [detailed list]

How to use DriverPacks to install all hardware drivers

1. You should do this on a working system, not on a newly formatted Windows. Download the latest DriverPacks slipstream tool (DriverPacks BASE 8.09 RC1). This version supports the creation of stand alone drivers.

2. Download the DriverPacks. To be safe, download all 10 DriverPacks. The download size of all 10 DriverPacks will be around 350MB.

3. Create an empty folder. Copy DriverPacks BASE 8.09 RC 1 (DPs_BASE_809rc1.exe) into the folder. Run DPs_BASE_809rc1.exe to extract the content. DPs_BASE.exe and 5 folders will be created. Copy the 10 downloaded DriverPacks into DriverPacks folder (1).

4. Run DPs_BASE.exe. Click the next button in the welcome screen and the next screen (settings) (2).

5. In the ‘Select location of platform’ screen, select ‘Stand Alone Drivers’ (3) as the ‘Installation platform’. Then, browse for the output folder (4) where you want to save the stand alone drivers. Click next (5).

6. In the next screen, click ‘Select all’ to include all the DriverPacks to be slipstreamed (6). Click next (7).

7. On the next screen, I recommend you to choose method 1 as the slipstream method (8).

Method 1 will enable the drivers to be installed instantly when running the driver installer, but the slipstream process will take a longer time. The final output folder of method 1 will be around 600MB which can be burned into a blank CD.

If you don’t really have a space to store the slipstreamed drivers, you can go with method 2. The drivers will be 7z-compressed, and the driver will be extracted first before installed. But, the final output folder for method 2 is around 340MB.

Click next (9).

8. For QuickStream Cache, enable this option (10) so that you won’t have to compress the DriverPacks again the next time you slipstream again. Click next to go to next screen (11).

9. For ATI and Nvidia Control Panel, you can enable these options (12) if you plan to use the graphic card’s control panel. Click next (13) 2 times.

10. If you are connected to the internet, DriverPacks BASE will check if there are any updated DriverPacks available. On this screen, you can click Slipstream (14) to start the slipstream process. The slipstream process will take some time.

DriverPacks slipstream is in progress.

11. After the slipstream process finished, you can copy the DriverPacks.net folder from the output folder and store it somewhere safe, or you can burn the folder into a CD. To install the drivers, run DP_Install_Tool.cmd (15) on the target machine. DriverPacks will check and install the known hardware drivers. After the driver installation process finished, restart your system and you should have all the drivers installed!

DriverPacks is being installed.

I recommend you use DriverPacks only to install your hardware drivers to get the hardware detectable by Windows only, before downloading the latest driver from the manufacturer website. DriverPacks is not frequently updated with the latest hardware driver, so you need to download the drivers manually to get the latest version of your hardware drivers.

DriverPacks however, only available for the x86 version of Windows 2000, Windows XP and Windows 2003.

I hope you will find this post useful!

[DriverPacks]